Sierra Leone tonight is a simple, though chilling statement by supporters of opposition politician Alie Kabba: “Where there is no justice, there can be no hope”.
Alie Kabba has once again been denied bail and sent to the country’s notorious maximum security prison, after court received ‘orders from above’. He will next appear at the High Court, where he can present his evidence and plead his innocence.
Supporters of Kabba say that he is a political prisoner of conscience, whose freedom has been denied once more by a politically controlled court in Freetown, on a flimsy and orchestrated technicality regarding the terms of his bail.
Only in Sierra Leone are you likely to find the rather bizarre contradiction of having a member of parliament – IB Kargbo, who has committed serial crimes, by first failing to declare to the country’s electoral commission that he was still working as a public servant whilst contesting a by-election; and worse, using ministerial letter headed paper to write a letter soliciting an unlawful agreement with the Lebanese government, to import waste into Sierra Leone for cash.
Despite these serious crimes, IB Kargbo walks a free man, a parliamentarian and a presidential adviser. No one in the judiciary and the government is batting an eyelid, whilst Alie kabba is sent to maximum security prison today, for alleged bigamy involving a government minister – a charge the government is struggling to prove.
Why? IB Kargbo is a senior member of the ruling APC and a close confidante of the president; Alie Kabba is a candidate for the presidency in 2018, and he is seen as the most powerful critic of the government’s failed policies.
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